Squid ink is expensive, smiling with black teeth is priceless
Jet-black fresh tagliolini tossed with tender squid in a garlicky tomato and white wine sauce. Wear dark clothes, grab some gloves and accept that your bench will look like a crime scene for a bit. The squid takes minutes, so get everything else ready first.
The challenge
- Making fresh pasta dough with squid ink
- Cleaning fresh squid
- Preventing seafood from overcooking
- Balancing garlic-tomato-wine sauce
Fresh pasta dough gets mixed with squid ink until it's uniformly black, which means your hands, countertop, and probably your face will look like a crime scene. The dough needs proper kneading and resting, then rolling to the right thickness; squid ink makes it slightly more delicate than regular pasta.
You also have to clean fresh squid by removing the beak, ink sac, and innards without puncturing anything, then slicing the bodies into rings. Timing is everything, because squid goes from tender to rubber bands in about 30 seconds of overcooking.
Prep: 1 hour 30 minutes (plus 30 minutes resting) ย ยทย Cook: 20 minutes
Ingredients
For the squid ink pasta
- 400 g (2 2/3 cups) '00' flour, plus semolina for dusting
- 3 large eggs plus 1 egg yolk
- 2 tbsp (about 30 g / 1 oz) squid or cuttlefish ink
For the sauce
- 600 g (1.3 lb) whole fresh squid (or 400 g / 14 oz cleaned)
- 5 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
- 4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
- 1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes
- 150 ml (2/3 cup) dry white wine
- 250 g (9 oz) cherry tomatoes, halved
- 1 tsp squid ink (optional, for an even darker sauce)
- Small bunch flat-leaf parsley, chopped, and zest of 1 lemon
- Salt and black pepper
Method
- Mix the doughMake a well with the flour on a board. Whisk the eggs, yolk and squid ink together and pour into the well. Using a fork, gradually draw in the flour until a shaggy dough forms. Wear gloves unless you fancy black hands for a day.
- Knead until uniformly blackKnead for 8-10 minutes until smooth, elastic and evenly black with no streaks. If it's sticky, add a little flour; if crumbly, wet your hands. Wrap tightly and rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.
- Clean the squidHold the body and gently pull the head and tentacles out; the innards follow. Cut the tentacles off just in front of the eyes and squeeze out the hard beak from the centre. If you find the silvery ink sac, carefully cut it free intact and keep it for the sauce. Pull the clear quill out of the body, peel off the purplish skin, rinse and pat dry.
- Slice the squidCut the bodies into 1 cm (1/2 in) rings and halve large tentacles. Pat very dry and season with salt.
- Roll the pastaCut the dough into 4 pieces. Keep the rest covered. Roll each through a pasta machine from the widest setting down to the second-thinnest (about 1 mm). Ink dough tears more easily, so dust lightly with semolina and don't force it. Cut into tagliolini or spaghetti and toss in semolina in loose nests.
- Start the sauceBring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil. In a large frying pan, warm the olive oil over medium heat and gently fry the garlic and chilli for 1-2 minutes until just golden. Add the wine and bubble for 2 minutes, then add the tomatoes and the optional ink and simmer for 5-6 minutes until the tomatoes slump.
- Cook the pastaDrop the pasta into the boiling water. Fresh pasta cooks fast: 1 1/2-2 minutes, until just tender. Scoop out a cup of pasta water before draining.
- Flash-cook the squidWhile the pasta cooks, turn the sauce to high, add the squid and cook for 60-90 seconds, just until it turns opaque and curls. Stop there; any longer and it turns rubbery.
- Toss and serveAdd the drained pasta to the pan with a splash of pasta water and toss for 30 seconds until glossy. Stir in the parsley and lemon zest, season, and serve straight away with a drizzle of olive oil.
- Flash the smileTwirl, eat and then smile at everyone with your very black teeth. Take a group photo before anyone thinks to brush. This is the most expensive smile you'll ever have, so show it off.
Tips from the trenches
- Squid ink dough is wetter than normal pasta dough; add flour a spoonful at a time rather than all at once.
- Keep the cleaned squid very cold and dry until it hits the pan so it sears instead of stewing.
- Cook squid either very quickly (under 2 minutes) or very slowly (over 30 minutes); anything in between is rubber.
- Taste the sauce before adding squid: it should be bright from the wine, sweet from the tomato and only gently garlicky.
โGood food and a warm kitchen is what makes a house a home.โโ Rachael Ray
